


you're all I breathe in

by anniebibananie



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 8x02, 8x03, Canon, F/M, Goodbyes, Reunions, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 06:41:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18686185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anniebibananie/pseuds/anniebibananie
Summary: "How did you say goodbye to the person who had made you feel like life was worth living? How did you tell them you were pretty sure you were destined to die again, and you would leave them behind?"





	1. g o o d b y e

**Author's Note:**

> currently published on tumblr, just cross-posting!!

“Are you ignoring me?” 

Jon looked up from the fire, hand on top of the hearth as he leaned toward the warmth, and caught Sansa staring back at him. There had always been something disconcerting with the way she looked at him. No, that wasn’t quite right. Not  _unsettling_ , but sort of soul-baring. When she looked at him, he could have sworn she saw every small bit of his heart. 

 _That_  thought wassort of unsettling in its own right, but she must not truly because she still came to him. She didn’t seem deterred. 

“Haven’t you heard the world may be ending tomorrow,” Sansa said as she took steps closer, looking into the flames herself. “It’s the only thing we’ve been focused on for months.” 

Jon sighed. “If there’s something you wanted to say to me, just say it. We don’t have time to talk around in circles. Not tonight.”

“No. Not tonight.” 

He watched her profile—so beautiful, so strong. In comparison to the flames, her red hair was just as red and warm. Her pink, plump bottom lip was sucked into her mouth as she chewed it briefly before resettling herself. It was the sort of nervous tick she never would have revealed to anyone but him. 

That was something, too, he wasn’t sure how to handle. 

“Have you been ignoring me?” she asked as she finally turned to meet his gaze, repeating the question more sharply, but not angrily.

“You should be in the crypts already.” 

“And you should answer me,” she said, stepping closer. 

It was simpler when they kept distance, when they had people in the room to keep things the way they were meant to. Except, it also was as easy as breathing when it was the two of them. Jon thought that was what unsettled him the most—the idea that the two of them breathing, existing together, was the most natural thing of all. 

“I didn’t know how to say goodbye,” he said, turning back toward the warmth. It was easier to say it when he didn’t have to stare at her beautiful features. There was too much feeling there, so much that at times it threatened to swallow him whole. 

Before she had come to him at Castle Black and after he had come back from the dead, he had still felt like he was lost in the sea. There was nothing. There was just an endless listlessness he was certain would fill him up from head to toe. Then, there was her. Then she gave him purpose, meaning. She gave him a reason to live again. 

How did you say goodbye to the person who had made you feel like life was worth living? How did you tell them you were pretty sure you were destined to die again, and you would leave them behind? 

“Not you. I wouldn’t ignore you,” he said with a shake of his head. 

“Jon,” she began. 

“But I’m not,” he cut her off, voice suddenly harsh. “I’m not Jon.” 

When he turned to look at her, she had a brow raised. “Would you prefer I call you Aegon?” 

“So, you know?” he asked. She nodded again. “No, I’m Jon Snow. I’ll always be Jon Snow.” 

“I think so, too.” She gave him a smile, and he was struck again with the thought that he did not deserve it. Did not deserve  _her._

 _“_ I don’t want to leave you,” he said honestly, his voice gruff with emotion. 

She sighed, and instead of turning to the flames to avoid the heaviness of this moment he kept his gaze on her. In the years they had been apart, Sansa had been wielded into a sort of weapon, but he could see it still. There was a softness to her, a lightness, that existed despite it all. 

He took a step toward her, and she mimicked the movement. They were facing each other now, and Jon looked at her pale, clean face. 

“Then don’t,” she said. Her hands came up to the sides of his face, holding him steady. “Don’t leave me.” 

“I can’t promise it.” If he could, he would. He would promise her a million things. He would apologize for the situation he had gotten all of them into.  _I’m trying to save the North. For you_ , he would tell her. “Sansa, I want to tell you… I…”

Sansa opened her eyes, and she shot him with such a sturdy gaze he stood taller, stronger in front of her. Their bodies were close enough he could see himself and the fire reflected in her wide, open eyes. 

“Tell me when you return,” she said. She shuffled forward and touched her forehead to his, and he closed his eyes. 

For a moment, he thought he could breathe for the first time in days, weeks. Maybe this was the only place he could ever be himself, now. Maybe she did see into him, see everything he was and felt, and loved him anyways. 

“We’ll talk about it then,” she said. She pulled back, kissed him on his forehead, then she laid a long kiss on his cheek that never seemed to end. 

 _I love you,_ he thought and almost dared to say. But it was the first time he truly thought there was a chance he might say it and hear it back the way he really wanted to. Or maybe the idea of death was simply making him fanciful, wanting to read into every gesture. It took everything in his power not to bridge that gap again and kiss her solidly on the lips, just to taste something that sweet before he might never have that chance again.

 _When I come back_ , he thought.  _When this war is won, and we are safe again. I’ll kiss her. I’ll love her. Until I can’t anymore._


	2. h e l l o

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I want you,” he said as he brought the second hand up to her cheek. Now he was holding her face in his hands, and he thought about how undeserving the callused, dirty things were holding something forged so beautifully between them. “I never thought I would get to tell you that.”

Jon was shaking. Jon was barely alive. Who was he, now? How did you stare death in the face that way, feel the people you cared about most in life fall around you, and keep moving forward? This was what he had been working toward for years, had thought about endlessly, and truth be told the after had seemed a far off concept. He could feel blood still coating his skin knowing some of it was his, some of it belonged to his fellow soldiers, none of it belonged to that now  _truly_ dead enemy that could not bleed. 

It made him think of the time he had nearly beaten Ramsay to a pulp—the darkness then that had wanted to take over, that he could not escape. It had been Sansa who had pulled him back the same as it always seemed to be. He wanted to see her,  _needed_ to. Where would she be? 

His feet took him to the hall that had been molded into an infirmary bay already. There were cuts and bruises coating his skin, but he was walking around well enough he didn’t need them looked at. Not when there were people so much worse off than him. He passed Jaime unconscious on a cot, Brienne at his side, just to prove that thought. 

He knew Sansa would be here, though. He knew she couldn’t stand around and wait, waiting like she had already been, while there were people she could help. 

“Sam,” Jon breathed out, relief and exhaustion coating the name. It had been the first word he had spoken since slashing his sword through the Night King. 

He looked up from who he was helping and flashed Jon a full smile. “Later, you’ll tell me everything. She’s in the back helping your sister.” 

Jon patted him on the shoulder and made his way through the people. He kept going by pure stubborn grit alone, carried by the thought of seeing his sisters. He caught a glimpse of red hair against stone tile, and for a second his heart stopped. No, it wasn’t Sansa. That was Alys, and as sorry as he felt for that poor girl, he kept going. Shakier, perhaps, but forward all the same. 

“I’m  _fine_ ,” Arya said as she pushed Sansa back. “Go help someone else.” 

“Arya,” Sansa began, voice terse, when she looked up and saw Jon. 

Arya moved forward to hug him first, and Jon was happy to clasp her to his chest and hold her tight. Then she stepped back, mumbling something about trying to find a  _stubborn blacksmith_ before it was just the two of them alone. 

They couldn’t seem to move, to breathe, to do anything for a moment. 

“You’re hurt,” Sansa said first. 

“I’m alive,” he said, and he wasn’t sure why he felt so guilty for it. 

She reached out a hand, and he took it without question. That was easy; that didn’t take anything. If she was willing to give him something he would always be there to take it no matter the task or burden. Sansa turned and led them from the room, walking through the halls back to her room. Once the door was closed behind them, she was holding onto him like she would never let go. 

It was easy to hold her back that way. It was the truth—he couldn’t think of ever letting her go. He needed her too deliriously, and maybe that was selfish but it was the one thing he thought maybe he could let himself have. When was the last time either of them had wanted something  _just_ for them?

“We won,” he said into her hair. 

“The war for life,” she said sadly back. “Not yet the war for peace.” 

“Will you not let me say it then?” he asked as he pulled back. His hands were still holding her, though, one on the side of her cheek the other on her upper arm. Her eyes were damp, but she flushed with life. Her cheeks were rosy, her limps plump and pink. 

“I said we will discuss it when you return,” she said. “Do you plan on leaving me again? I rather wish you wouldn’t, but I know a dragon queen holds a certain appeal.” 

 _Not compared to a direwolf,_ he thought.  _Not next to the woman who sets every inch of me on fire, no need for a dragon to do it._

 _“_ I want you,” he said as he brought the second hand up to her cheek. Now he was holding her face in his hands, and he thought about how undeserving the callused, dirty things were holding something forged so beautifully between them. “I never thought I would get to tell you that.” 

Her eyes fluttered shut, and he couldn’t seem to look away. Her breathes were coming quicker now, and he wondered what she was going to say next. She wasn’t pushing back in disgust, not pulling forward in want. The whole moment sat dangerously in the balance. 

She didn’t open her eyes, but she did open her lips. “Jon,” she said in a breathy sort of whisper, something more of a dream than reality. “Kiss me.” 

It was a request he would never be able to ignore, and he moved forward cautiously before capturing her lips in his. He had thought about kissing her a million and one times—the way her body would curve into his, the way her lips would feel—but she was something else in actuality. 

She stepped closer into the kiss until their bodies were one and the same, and she couldn’t seem to stop her hands from holding him to her. Their lips moved slowly, surely, but it was quick to become overcome with more. They had both thought death might separate them, other things too. How many more times would they get to do this? 

Sansa stepped back first as she brought her hands up to smooth her hair down. “You don’t love her?” she asked. There was a vulnerability Jon hadn’t seen on her since she was a young child. “I can’t share your affections. It would break me.” 

“I want you,” he repeated. “Only you. Only  _ever_ you. I did it for the North, I know it isn’t an excuse and I know it hasn’t made your life easy, but—”

Before the words were done she had cut them off with a kiss again, and as they stopped to breathe they stayed close, foreheads touching. 

“Let’s not talk of it now,” she whispered. “Let’s clean you up and rest. For a little while, let’s pretend all the wars are won. Can we?” 

He would do anything she asked, truly he would, but this one felt nearly too good to be true. He was still a wrecked man, and he did not deserve her salvation, but she wanted  _him_ for some odd, unimaginable reason. He would give her all the parts of himself he still had left. 

“I love you,” he said with a nod because he was tired of keeping feelings inside.  _This_ was all of him. His love for her was sometimes the only thing he was sure of these days. 

She smiled at him sweet and tempestuous. It felt like the eye of the storm. “And I you. Let me help you.” 

So he did. He had never been all that good at carrying the burden alone, anyways. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on tumblr: [anniebibananie](http://anniebibananie.tumblr.com/)


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